The Commentariat -- September 27, 2019
Late Morning/Afternoon Update:
Rachel Frazin of the Hill: "The House Foreign Affairs Committee on Friday subpoenaed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for documents relating to the Trump administration's dealings with Ukraine, indicating Democrats are wasting no time diving into the formal impeachment inquiry they launched just this week. The subpoena notice, drafted in consultation with the Intelligence and Oversight committees, accuses Pompeo of refusing to turn over requested information to Congress amid the Democrats&' nascent investigation into Trump's dealings with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. 'Your continued refusal to provide the requested documents not only prevents our Committees from fully investigating these matters, but impairs Congress' ability to fulfill its Constitutional responsibilities to protect our national security and the integrity of our democracy,' wrote Reps. Eliot L. Engel, head of Foreign Affairs; Adam Schiff, chairman of the Intelligence panel; and Elijah Cummings, who leads the Committee on Oversight and Reform." Here's the New York Times story.
Rudy, Rudy, Rudy. Tom Hamburger, et al., of the Washington Post: "Rudolph W. Giuliani, whose actions as President Trump's personal lawyer have helped set in motion an impeachment inquiry, is set to appear as a paid speaker at a Kremlin-backed conference in Armenia on Tuesday -- an event expected to include the participation of Russian President Vladimir Putin and other top Russian officials.... According to an agenda for the event posted online, Giuliani is set to participate in a panel led by Sergey Glazyev, a longtime Putin adviser who has been under U.S. sanctions since Russia's invasion of Ukraine five years ago. Giuliani's decision to take part in the conference astounded national security experts..... The agenda for the Eurasian conference shows Giuliani is the only American scheduled to speak at the gathering." ~~~
~~~ ** Hahahaha. Reversal of Fortunes. Update: "Rudolph W. Giuliani ... abruptly canceled his scheduled paid appearance at a Kremlin-backed conference in Armenia next week. Giuliani, who confirmed to The Washington Post on Friday morning that he would attend the event, reversed himself that evening after The Post reported on his participation in the meeting, which Russian President Vladimir Putin and other top Russian officials are expected to attend.... 'I didn't know Putin was going,' he said in a brief interview, adding in a text: 'Discretion is the better part of valor.'... In an interview Friday before canceling his plans, Giuliani angrily rejected questions about whether it would be appropriate for him to attend the event at which he also appeared last year. 'I will try to not knowingly talk to a Russian until this is all over,' he retorted.”
Hill: "A new Hill-HarrisX survey on Friday found support for impeachment proceedings against President Trump has risen 12 points compared to a similar poll conducted three months ago. The survey was conducted on Sept. 26-27, just days after House Democrats started a formal impeachment inquiry over a whistleblower complaint involving Trump's communications with Ukraine. The poll showed 47 percent of respondents support that decision, up 12 points from a similar survey in June, which asked whether Democrats should begin impeachment proceedings. Meanwhile, opposition to impeachment dipped 3 points to 42 percent, while 11 percent of those polled in the new survey said they weren't sure or didn't know."
Adam Edelman of NBC News: "More than 300 former national security and foreign policy officials signed a letter released Friday labeling ... Donald Trump's growing Ukraine scandal a 'profound national security concern' and praising congressional Democrats for formally launching an impeachment inquiry. 'President Trump appears to have leveraged the authority and resources of the highest office in the land to invite additional foreign interference into our democratic processes. That would constitute an unconscionable abuse of power. It also would represent an effort to subordinate America's national interests -- and those of our closest allies and partners -- to the President's personal political interest,' the letter's authors wrote." The letter is here.
POTUS* Unable to Make Sense. Sounding more and more like the so-called Whistleblower isn't a Whistleblower at all. In addition, all second hand information that proved to be so inaccurate that there may not have even been somebody else, a leaker or spy, feeding it to him or her? A partisan operative? -- Donald Trump, in a tweet this morning
Just as a note, Donald, to the only part of your tweet I can understand, your own DNI said the whistleblower's assertions were "accurate," or his words, "in alignment with" your little shakedown of President Zelensky. -- Mrs. Bea McCrabbie
More Confirmation of the Whistleblower's Assertions. Pamela Brown of CNN: "The White House is acknowledging for the first time that officials did direct the Ukraine call transcript be filed in a separate classified system. In a statement provided to CNN, a senior White House official says it was under the direction of National Security Council attorneys: 'NSC lawyers directed that the classified document be handled appropriately.' The admission lends further credibility to the whistleblower complaint description of how the transcript with the Ukrainian president, among others, were kept out of wider circulation by using a system for highly sensitive documents."
Rebecca Morin of USA Today: "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Friday accused Attorney General Bill Barr of going 'rogue' after earlier this month the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel determined not to share a bombshell whistleblower complaint with Congress.... 'I think where they are going is the cover up of the cover up, and that's really very sad for them,' Pelosi said. 'To have a Justice Department go so rogue, well they have been for a while, and now it just makes matters worse that the attorney general was mentioned..., and yet the Justice Department directed the director of national intelligence to take this to the White House.' Barr was referenced four times in the July call [between Trump & Zelensky], with the president repeatedly offering Zelensky to enlist Barr -- as well as the president's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani -- to help investigate a Ukrainian energy firm in an effort to try to damage Biden."
Sharon LaFraniere, et al., of the New York Times: "President Trump's words about Marie L. Yovanovitch, his former ambassador to Ukraine, were ominous.... He told Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, that she was 'bad news.' 'She's going to go through some things,' he added. In fact, she already has gone through quite a bit. Over the past several months, Ms. Yovanovitch, a decorated 33-year veteran of the State Department, has been vilified in the right-wing news media, denounced by the president's eldest son as a 'joker,' called a Democratic stooge by the president's personal lawyer and then abruptly recalled from Kiev this May, months ahead of schedule. Her supposed sin, never backed up by evidence, was that she had shown disloyalty to Mr. Trump, disparaging him behind his back. Her friends, who say her professionalism and history of diplomatic service make that highly unlikely, have another theory: She had turned into collateral damage in efforts by Mr. Trump and Rudolph W. Giuliani ... to damage the reputation of former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr." ~~~
~~~ Jennifer Hansler of CNN: "Diplomats are rallying to the support of former US ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch after the release of a whistleblower complaint shed further light on the circumstances of her unexpected removal. The allegations raised in the complaint, in combination with ... Donald Trump's comments about the career diplomat revealed in the White House transcript of a call between Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart, lend further credence to the claim that Yovanovitch's removal from her post last May was politically motivated."
Fred Kaplan of Slate argues that the House Intelligence Committee hearing questioning new acting DNI Joseph Maguire "was a shoddily run affair, an ill-prepared ramble through the maze of process and possible cover-ups rather than a laser-focused inquiry into the damning substance of the documents that lay before the committee, containing charges that have shocked even jaded observers. If one purpose of open hearings is to educate the public, much of which doesn't yet support impeachment, then this first salvo was at best a waste of airtime.... Before this inquiry goes much farther, the House committees need to hire lawyers to direct the questioning.... It's also time to haul out the Capitol Hill marshals and charge uncooperative witnesses with contempt. Certainly Lewandowski should have been charged, fined, maybe jailed."
~~~~~~~~~~
"Treason, Bribery, or Other High Crimes," Ctd.
Way Cheaper & More Effective than Bob Mueller.* Greg Miller of the Washington Post: "From the moment he learned about President Trump's attempts to extract political dirt on former vice president Joe Biden from the newly elected leader of Ukraine on July 25, the CIA officer behind the whistleblower report moved swiftly behind the scenes to assemble material from at least a half-dozen highly placed -- and equally dismayed -- U.S. officials.... [Since he delivered his complaint] to the intelligence community's inspector general on [August 12]..., the whistleblower has by some measures managed to exceed what former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III accomplished in two years of investigating Trump: producing a file so concerning and factually sound that it has almost single-handedly set in motion the gears of impeachment."
* This isn't quite true. Mueller's prosecutors also extracted millions in asset forfeitures from Paul Manafort though the monies go into & come out of different pots. ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: In a comment yesterday, I noted the alarming fact that, while dozens of federal officials knew about Trump's shakedown of Zelensky, only one of these public servants blew the whistle. Well, now I've heard two former intelligence officers & Carol Leonnig of the Washington Post speculate that the whistleblower was operating as a sort of "team leader" of a group of officials who wanted to bring Trump's illegal & unethical political ops to light. This view certainly is supported by the apparent number of people the whistleblower cited who could back up his findings. So maybe the situation is less dismal than I thought.
** The whistleblower's full complaint released by the House yesterday (so not firewalled) is here. OR you can listen to a somewhat dramatic reading of it (thanks, Rachel Maddow):
~~~ Here's the letter from intelligence Inspector General Michael Atkinson to DNI Jerry MaGuire, dated August 26, to which he attached the whistleblower's complaint.
Peter Baker of the New York Times: "The alarm among officials who heard the exchange [between Trump & Zelensky] led to an extraordinary effort to keep too many more people from learning about it. In the days to come, according to a whistle-blower complaint released on Thursday, White House officials embarked on a campaign to 'lock down' the record of the call, removing it from the usual electronic file and hiding it away in a separate system normally used for classified information. But word began to spread anyway, kicking off a succession of events that would eventually ... put Mr. Trump at risk of being impeached.... While the White House disparaged the whistle-blower's complaint as full of secondhand information and media-reported events, it did not directly deny the sequence of events as outlined. Moreover, other officials amplified the narrative on Thursday with details that were not in the complaint. For instance, they said, at one point an order was given to not distribute the reconstructed transcript of Mr. Trump's call electronically, as would be typical. Instead, copies were printed out and hand delivered to a select group." ~~~
~~~ Trump Not Impressed with Baker's Reporting. Obama loving (wrote Obama book) Peter Baker of the Failing New York Times, married to an even bigger Trump Hater than himself [Mrs. McC: Susan Glasser of the New Yorker], should not even be allowed to write about me. Every story is a made up disaster with sources and leakers that don't even exist. -- Donald Twump (typo, but cute), in a tweet this morning ~~~
~~~ Josh Dawsey & Carol Leonnig of the Washington Post: "The White House has taken extraordinary steps over the past two years to block details of President Trump's phone calls with foreign leaders from becoming public, following embarrassing disclosures early in his administration that enraged the president and created a sense of paranoia among his top aides. The number of aides allowed to listen on secure 'drop' lines was slashed. The list of government officials who could review a memo of the call's contents was culled. Fewer copies of transcripts went to agencies, and they were stamped with 'EYES ONLY DO NOT COPY.' And some officials who deliver call memos had to sign for the records to create a custody record if they were to leak, according to people familiar with the moves who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe them.... The effort at secrecy surrounding the call [with Zelensky] was not surprising from the Trump White House, where the president often makes impolitic or inappropriate comments...."
Washington Post Editors: "THE WHISTLEBLOWER complaint released on Thursday adds vital -- and damning -- context to the rough transcript of a July 25 phone call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.... The carefully constructed complaint shows that this coercion was not limited to one phone call but consisted of a series of acts over time. It reports that White House officials understood Mr. Trump's behavior to be improper and tried to conceal the wrongdoing. And we learn that the Justice Department has been more deeply involved in the affair than it had previously acknowledged. The complaint significantly bolsters the case that the quid pro quo of the July 25 phone call was a promise by Mr. Zelensky to investigate Mr. Biden in exchange for an invitation to meet Mr. Trump at the White House.... Mr. Trump's abuse of power had a host of enablers. Congress should hold them all to account."
Adam Goldman, et al., of the New York Times: "The whistle-blower who revealed that President Trump sought foreign help for his re-election and that the White House sought to cover it up is a C.I.A. officer who was detailed to work at the White House at one point, according to three people familiar with his identity. The man has since returned to the C.I.A., the people said. Little else is known about him. His complaint made public Thursday suggested he was an analyst by training and made clear he was steeped in details of American foreign policy toward Europe, demonstrating a sophisticated understanding of Ukrainian politics and at least some knowledge of the law. The whistle-blower's expertise will likely add to lawmakers' confidence about the merits of his complaint, and tamp down allegations that he might have misunderstood what he learned about Mr. Trump.... Lawyers for the whistle-blower refused to confirm that he worked for the C.I.A. and said that publishing information about him was dangerous." ~~~
~~~ This story has been updated, with Julian Barnes as the lead reporter. New Lede: "The White House learned that a C.I.A. officer had lodged allegations against President Trump's dealings with Ukraine even as the officer's whistle-blower complaint was moving through a process meant to protect him against reprisals, people familiar with the matter said on Thursday. The officer first shared information about potential abuse of power and a White House cover-up with the C.I.A.'s top lawyer through an anonymous process, some of the people said. She shared the officer's concerns with White House and Justice Department officials, following policy. Around the same time, he also separately filed the whistle-blower complaint. The revelations provide new insight about how the officer's allegations moved through the bureaucracy of government." The Hill summarizes the update here. Update: And CNN has done its own reporting here.~~~
~~~ New York Times: Many readers, including some who work in national security and intelligence, have criticized The Times's decision to publish the details, saying it potentially put the person's life in danger and may have a chilling effect on would-be whistle-blowers.... Dean Baquet, The Times's executive editor..., responded..., 'We decided to publish limited information about the whistle-blower -- including the fact that he works for a nonpolitical agency and that his complaint is based on an intimate knowledge and understanding of the White House -- because we wanted to provide information to readers that allows them to make their own judgments about whether or not he is credible.'" ~~~
~~~ Danger? What Danger? ~~~
Basically, that person [the whistleblower] never saw the report, never saw the call, he never saw the call -- heard something and decided that he or she, or whoever the hell they saw -- theyre almost a spy. I want to know who's the person, who's the person who gave the whistleblower the information? Because that's close to a spy. 'You know what we used to do in the old days when we were smart? Right? The spies and treason, we used to handle it a little differently than we do now. -- Donald Trump, to staffers at the U.S. Mission to the U.N. (link is to a Guardian liveblog @13:40) ~~~
~~~ Trump Tells Diplomats Whistleblowers Should Be Shot. Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "President Trump on Thursday morning told a crowd of staff from the United States Mission to the United Nations that he wants to know who provided information to a whistle-blower about his phone call with the president of Ukraine, saying that whoever did so was 'close to a spy' and that 'in the old days,' spies were dealt with differently. The remark stunned people in the audience, according to a person briefed on what took place, who had notes of what the president said. Mr. Trump made the statement ... at the event intended to honor the United States Mission. At the outset, he condemned the former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s role in Ukraine at a time when his son Hunter Biden was on the board of a Ukrainian energy company. Mr. Trump repeatedly referred to the whistle-blower and condemned the news media reporting on the complaint as 'crooked.'... The event was closed to reporters, and during his remarks, the president called the news media 'scum.'..." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Update. Here's a New York Times "partial transcript of Mr. Trump's remarks [at the U.S. Mission gathering]. Portions related to the whistle-blower and the Ukrain matter are in bold." Includes audio. ~~~
~~~ Update 2. Bloomberg has obtained a video. Here's a YouTube clip that begins with Trump's deriding Joe & Hunter Biden & ends with the whistleblowers-as-spies remark. ~~~
~~~ Martin Longman in the Washington Monthly: "To be clear, the president of the United States thinks someone should be killed. If not that whistleblower..., then the people who talked to the whistleblower should be dead.... It's delusional to think that news of the call slipped out due to one or two 'spies.' A wide group of people responsible for Ukraine policy knew about it.... People talked because we can't run a government or state-to-state relationships based on some ridiculous and private scheming between the president, his friend/lawyer and a corrupt attorney general.... If the president wants to blame someone for his present difficulties, he should blame himself for setting up a Keystone Kops version of a spy mission." ~~~
~~~ digby: "So the president threatens the whistleblower and the NYT publishes information about him the same day?... They need to provide this person protection right away. Even if Trump doesn't give the order there are plenty of violent yahoos out there, foreign and domestic." ~~~
Threats of violence from the leader of our country have a chilling effect on the entire whistleblower process, with grave consequences for our democracy and national security. -- Reps. Adam Schiff of California, Eliot Engel of New York and Elijah Cummings of Maryland ~~~
~~~ Juan Cole: Trump "is desperate to prevent more whistleblowers from surfacing and revealing more crimes or more details about the Zelensky shakedown. So he characterizes legitimate whistleblowing as espionage against the US government and hints around at execution, to warn any others who might think about stepping out of line. In saying he wants to know the identity of the whistleblowers' sources, Trump is signalling to his toadies, such as Rep. Devin Nunes, and whispering in their ears that they should leak the names as soon as they know it. If Trump manages to out the whistleblower's sources and damage their careers, they can discourage all those who like getting a paycheck from stepping forward." ~~~
~~~ Zachary Cohen of CNN: "The acting US spy chief broke with ... Donald Trump and some Republicans who've criticized and questioned the motives of an intelligence community whistleblower who filed a complaint against the President, when Joseph Maguire said Thursday that he believed the 'whistleblower did the right thing' and 'followed the law every step of the way.' Maguire, the acting director of national intelligence, also acknowledged at a public hearing before the House Intelligence Committee that his office consulted with White House counsel after receiving a complaint detailing allegations about Trump's communications with Ukraine, because calls with foreign leaders usually fall under executive privilege. Maguire repeatedly defended his handling of the complaint, telling lawmakers he followed the law in an 'unprecedented' situation despite claims to the contrary by Democrats that he infringed on their right to review the allegations." (Also linked yesterday.)
Asawin Suebsaeng & Sam Stein of the Daily Beast: "As ... Donald Trump wrapped up his swing through New York City on Thursday, he stopped by the luxury restaurant Cipriani to deliver remarks at a high-roller breakfast fundraiser. Fresh off meetings at the United Nations, it was clear the president couldn't take his mind off a certain anonymous whistleblower whose recently declassified complaint has threatened to blow up his administration. According to an attendee at the breakfast, Trump brandished a printed copy of the memo of his now-infamous Ukraine phone call, flaunting it as he blasted Democratic lawmakers for being mean to him. After waving the document around and receiving cheers from the gathering of Republican donors and supporters, the president boasted about how much money -- $13 million in 24 hours -- he had raised for his reelection effort, the attendee noted."
Cristina Marcos of the Hill: "Rep. Michael Turner (R-Ohio), a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said on Thursday that President Trump's conversation with Ukraine's leader ... was 'not OK.' Turner openly criticized Trump as he began his questioning of acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire at a House Intelligence Committee hearing concerning a whistleblower complaint about Trump's July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.... GOP lawmakers have largely stood by Trump and dismissed Democrats' calls for impeachment in the wake of the whistleblower complaint. But a handful have expressed concern with the allegations, including Rep. Will Hurd (R-Texas), another member of the Intelligence Committee. 'There is a lot in the whistleblower complaint that is concerning. We need to fully investigate all of the allegations addressed in the letter, and the first step is to talk to the whistleblower,' Hurd, a former CIA officer who is not seeking reelection, tweeted at the start of Thursday's hearing." ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: In fact, Lawrence O'Donnell pointed out that during the hearing, none of the Republicans on the committee defended Trump. They defended Maguire; they insulted Democrats, but they didn't have a word of support for the Dear Leader. Though I'd guess this was a group strategy, it certainly is an ominous omen for Donaldo.
Nicholas Fandos of the New York Times liveblogged impeachment updates Thursday. Here are portions of a few entries: "Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday accused the White House of engaging in 'a cover-up' of the Ukraine affair, citing a whistle-blower complaint that said Trump administration officials worked to 'lock down' all records of a call between President Trump and Ukraine's president.... The use of the word cover-up seemed designed to hark back to the era of Richard Nixon, who resigned rather than face impeachment." AND "Joseph Maguire, the intelligence chief at the center of the fight over a whistle-blower complaint about President Trump's dealings with Ukraine, said the whistle-blower 'acted in good faith' and called the case 'unique and unprecedented.'... He told Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi, Democrat of Illinois, that he would not have accepted the post of acting director of national intelligence if he knew of the case." (Also linked yesterday.)
David Remnick of the New Yorker interviews Nancy Pelosi about her rapid evolution on impeachment in an essay titled "Nancy Pelosi: Extremely Stable Genius."
Nicholas Fandos of the New York Times: "A crucial cache of evidence in hand, House Democrats moved quickly on Thursday with an impeachment inquiry they said would be focused tightly on President Trump's dealings with Ukraine, using an incendiary whistle-blower complaint as a road map for their investigation." ~~~
~~~ Heidi Przybyla, et al., of NBC News: "The path forward for a formal impeachment process against ... Donald Trump is taking shape among House Democrats, with aides and lawmakers describing the whistleblower complaint alleging that Trump tried to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate a political rival as both a primary focus and a tipping point. 'The consensus in our caucus is that focus now is on this allegation,' House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday. 'All of the other work that relates to abuse of power, ignoring subpoenas of government, of Congress, abuse -- contempt of Congress by him -- those things will be considered later.'"
Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times: "In the Ukraine scandal, evidence of comprehensive corruption goes far beyond Trump.... In the reconstruction of Trump's call with Zelensky that was released by the White House, Trump repeatedly said that he wanted Ukraine's government to work with [Attorney General William] Barr on investigating the Bidens. Barr's office insists that the president hasn't spoken to Barr about the subject, but given the attorney general's record of flagrant dishonesty -- including his attempts to mislead the public about the contents of the Mueller report -- there's no reason to believe him.... Barr's ethical nihilism, his utter indifference to ordinary norms of professional behavior, means that he's retaining the authority to stop investigations into crimes he may have participated in.... That makes the impeachment proceedings in the House, where Barr will likely be called as a witness, the last defense against complete administration lawlessness."
Darren Samuelsohn of Politico: "... the White House lawyers in the middle of the latest scandal to threaten Donald Trump's presidency ... are under intense scrutiny as a formal congressional investigation gets underway in a matter that, on the face of it, doesn't look good for those involved. Democratic lawmakers driving the newly emboldened Trump impeachment inquiry want answers from Pat Cipollone, the White House counsel, about his team's role in trying to manage the Ukraine affair, including their involvement in locking up records of a phone call between Trump and the Ukrainian president. Bigger-picture, they also want to know whether his attorneys were working on the taxpayers&' dime to whitewash any misdeeds by the president rather than protecting the institution of the presidency itself.... The second issue involves the role the White House lawyers played in delaying the whistleblower's complaint to Congress." ~~~
~~~ Pema Levy of Mother Jones: "According to the [whistleblower's] complaint, White House lawyers ordered that the transcript, which records Trump pressuring President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine to conduct investigations that would benefit his political messaging, be stored in a special classified database managed by the National Security Council [e]ven though the transcript did not contain the kind of classified information usually held in that system.... Worse, the whistleblower says he was told this was 'not the first time' the system had been abused under Trump to hide politically sensitive information.... Not only could such officials face repercussions for abusing the classification system, the documents they improperly filed, if revealed, could contain a wealth of information on embarrassing or illegal administration actions."
America's Mayor. Elaina Plott of the Atlantic: "When I reached [Rudy Giuliani] by phone this morning, following House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff's release of the full whistle-blower complaint..., he was, put simply, very angry. 'It is impossible that the whistle-blower is a hero and I'm not. And I will be the hero! These morons -- when this is over, I will be the hero,' Giuliani told me. 'I'm not acting as a lawyer. I'm acting as someone who has devoted most of his life to straightening out government,' he continued, sounding out of breath. 'Anything I did should be praised.' Giuliani unleashed a rant about the Bidens, Hillary Clinton, the Clinton Foundation, Barack Obama, the media, and the 'deep state.'... Giuliani said he's looking forward to watching the State Department 'sink themselves' as officials try to create distance from him.... When I asked him about this specifically, Giuliani nearly began shouting into the telephone." ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: I suspect Rudy the Hero is going to wish he hadn't said, "I'm not acting as a lawyer," right about the time he gets a subpoena from a House committee. Adios, fake lawyer-client privilege. ~~~
~~~ Here's a Surprise. Michael Warren of CNN: "Rudy Giuliani tells CNN he has 'no knowledge of any of that crap' in the newly released complaint from an American intelligence community whistleblower. Asked Thursday morning about details from the complaint that multiple US officials were 'deeply concerned' about his activities speaking with Ukrainian officials and nationals, Giuliani called the charge 'total nonsense.' Giuliani spoke to CNN multiple times on Thursday morning from what he said was his room at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, DC." Mrs. McC: Is Trump comping the room? (Also linked yesterday.)
Shannon Pettypiece, et al., of NBC News: "White House officials were scrambling Thursday to figure out how to counter the House Democrats' impeachment inquiry, with one source familiar with the situation describing a sense of 'total panic' over the past week at the lack of a plan to address the new reality.... Another person familiar with the discussions described the mood inside the White House as 'shell-shocked,' with increasing wariness that, as this impeachment inquiry drags out, the likelihood increases that the president could respond erratically and become 'unmanageable.'" ~~~
~~~ Oh, Great. Dana Bash, et al., of CNN: "Corey Lewandowski, the political operative who helped elect Donald Trump, has had conversations with White House officials in recent days about potentially taking a position inside the administration to help the President confront a looming impeachment fight. The discussions, including a Thursday afternoon meeting at the White House, reflect the growing recognition among Trump's allies and advisers that he is without a clear strategy for managing the crisis, which exploded in stunning fashion this week. Trump's 2016 campaign manager would be in a crisis management type role, and the idea as it currently stands would be for Lewandowski to assemble a team that mirrors the one that existed in Bill Clinton's White House when he was facing his own impeachment." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: According to NBC News' report, linked above, "But Lewandowski told NBC News that it was not accurate to suggest he would lead such an effort." Since Lewandowski said in sworn Congressional testimony that "I have no obligation to be honest with the media," you can take his denial for what it's worth.
Li Zhou of Vox: "Senate Republicans [are] questioning the credibility of the whistleblower. 'What's concerning to me is it's based upon secondhand and third-hand reports ... so you got to get more facts behind it,' Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) told Vox. 'He's not a whistleblower, by definition he's not a whistleblower, because he was reporting hearsay,' emphasized Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA). It's true that much of the information that was gathered by a whistleblower was based on secondhand accounts. But a large portion of the report -- at least pertaining to what Trump said on a July call with Ukrianian President Volodymyr Zelensky -- has already been corroborated by the White House itself. The allegations centering specifically on requests that Trump made of Zelensky during the call, for example, match up neatly between the whistleblower account and the administration's own summary. [Mrs. McC: The whistleblower had not seen a readout of the call.] A statement from Trump-appointed Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson, who deemed the complaint both urgent and credible, also rebuts attacks on the whistleblower."
Matt Murphy of (Massachusetts) State House News: Massachusetts "Gov. Charlie Baker appeared Thursday to back the decision of Congressional House leadership to open a formal impeachment inquiry into ... Donald Trump following the revelation that Trump tried to enlist the Ukrainian president to investigate his political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden. In Everett where he was promoting new housing production, Baker said he was not familiar with 'all of the written materials and allegations that are out there so far,' but had read and heard enough to be alarmed by the president's behavior." ~~~
~~~ Wilson Ring of the AP: "Vermont's governor became the first Republican chief executive to support an impeachment inquiry against ... Donald Trump but cautioned that he wants to know more before any further actions are taken. Gov. Phil Scott said at a news conference Thursday that he wasn't surprised by the news that Trump repeatedly urged Ukraine's president to 'look into' Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden because he's 'watched him over the years.'"
"The president has launched a fresh assault on fair elections." Unfortunately, this isn't happening a long time ago in a universe far, far away. pic.twitter.com/EUuAptsKJv
— New York Times Opinion (@nytopinion) September 27, 2019
Susan Glasser of the New Yorker: "On Wednesday morning, [Donald Trump] released the full White House account of his July 25th phone call with the Ukrainian leader, Volodymyr Zelensky. Trump, his allies, and his advisers ... insisted [the account] would undercut the impeachment inquiry into the Ukraine matter before it even started.... Instead, the document released by his own staff added new information to the scandal, revealing that Trump had not only requested an investigation of Biden and his son Hunter but had specifically asked Zelensky to coöperate with his private lawyer, Rudolph Giuliani, and the Attorney General, William Barr, on it. The President's language was hardly subtle.... 'I would like you to do us a favor though,' the President said, in a line that seems destined to land in the history books.... Trump added later in the conversation, 'it's very important that you do it.' This was not the exculpatory moment that Trump had claimed it would be. Impeachment may have been an uncertain outcome before 10 A.M. on Wednesday. Afterward, it was a near-certainty.... The next season of the Trump show has begun." (Also linked yesterday.)
Annals of "Journalism," Ha Ha Ha. Gabriel Sherman of Vanity Fair: Shep Smith & Tucker Carlson are feuding, "Sean Hannity told friends the whistle-blower's allegations are 'really bad'... And according to four sources, Fox Corp CEO Lachlan Murdoch is already thinking about how to position the network for a post-Trump future.... Among the powerful voices advising Lachlan that Fox should decisively break with the president is former House speaker Paul Ryan...."
David Nakamura, et al., of the Washington Post: "The Trump administration has set the cap on the number of refugees admitted to the United States next year at 18,000, the lowest level since the program began four decades ago, officials said Thursday. The new limit represents a 40 percent drop from the 2019 cap and marks the third consecutive year that the administration has slashed the program since the United States admitted nearly 85,000 refugees in President Barack Obama's final year in office. In addition, the Trump White House announced an executive order aimed at allowing local jurisdictions more leeway in rejecting refugees who are being resettled across the country, although experts said such powers are less relevant at a time when the number of refugees being admitted has dwindled sharply." BuzzFeed News' story is here. ~~~
~~~ Eric Levitz of New York: "The conflict between Donald Trump's disparate goals is straightforward: The birth rate in the United States is dramatically falling, while its population is rapidly aging. These demographic trends are afflicting much of the developed world, and have taken an especially severe toll on Europe's economic fortunes. To this point, the aging of the baby-boom generation has done less damage to America's prosperity because our nation has been exceptionally attractive to -- and welcoming of -- working-age immigrants from overseas. But in the Trump era, that is beginning to change. While White House senior nativist Stephen Miller failed to get his plan for halving legal immigration through the Senate, the Trump administration has succeeded in scaring away those huddled masses yearning to fill the gaps in America's graying labor force.... It will be exceedingly difficult for America to sustain its living standards or preeminence on the world stage unless it makes expansionary immigration a priority of public policy."
Felicia Sonmez & Eli Rosenberg of the Washington Post: "The Senate on Thursday confirmed Eugene Scalia to succeed Alex Acosta, the labor secretary who resigned in July amid an outcry over his role in a plea deal for the multimillionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Scalia is a partner at the Washington law firm Gibson Dunn, where he has represented companies such as Walmart, Ford and UPS in workers rights claims. He is also the son of the late Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia. Scalia was confirmed Thursday on a 53-to-44 vote. Democrats have argued that Scalia's record as a corporate lawyer has shown him to be 'anti-worker.' In remarks on the Senate floor Thursday morning, Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) contended that Scalia fought to protect the interests of chief executives and the wealthy elite and opposed worker protections throughout his career, describing his nomination by President Trump as a 'disgrace.'" Politico's story is here.
Jordain Carney of the Hill: "The Senate passed a stopgap spending bill Thursday, days before the deadline to prevent a government shutdown. Senators voted 82-15 on the continuing resolution (CR), which will fund the government through Nov. 21. Lawmakers had until Monday night to prevent the second funding lapse of the year. The measure, which passed the House last week, now heads to President Trump's desk, where White House officials have said they expect him to sign it." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Erica Werner of the Washington Post: "The Senate passed a stopgap spending bill Thursday to keep the government open through Nov. 21, punting tough decisions over President Trump's border wall and other funding disputes until just before Thanksgiving." (Also linked yesterday.)
Mike Schneider of the AP: "The gap between the haves and have-nots in the United States grew last year to its highest level in more than 50 years of tracking income inequality, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures released Thursday. Income inequality in the United States expanded from 2017 to 2018, with several heartland states among the leaders of the increase, even though several wealthy coastal states still had the most inequality overall, according to the figures.... Even though household income increased, it was distributed unevenly, with the wealthiest helped possibly by a tax cut passed by Congress in 2017, said Hector Sandoval, an economist at the University of Florida." (Also linked yesterday.)
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Reader Comments (27)
Aside from its use for impeachment, I really would like to find out what the investigation of Burisma and Hunter Biden showed. The fact that the prosecutor had suspended it a year before Biden pressured the Ukrainian government to fire him does not mean the investigation did not find wrongdoing. Also, I was startled that Biden bragged about how he forced a foreign government to do his bidding.
Anyway, something overlooked in the excitement about impeachment, I'm really curious about Trump's asking Zelezny to return the DNC's server, which Crowdstrike apparently still holds. There are hints that Crowdstrike, one of whose co-founders is rabidly anti-Russian, actually works for Ukrainian intelligence. I love conspiracy theories.
@Procopius: Biden's efforts on behalf of the Obama administration to tamp down corruption in Ukraine was part of an international effort. And, as David Graham of the Atlantic wrote the other day, "In effect, Biden’s pressure to install a tougher prosecutor [in Ukraine] probably made it more likely, not less, that Burisma [-- the Ukrainian natural-gas company that installed Hunter Biden on its board --] would be in the cross hairs. But since then, the Ukrainian government has not produced any evidence of wrongdoing by Burisma, and the current prosecutor general said in May there was none."
As Graham acknowledges, Hunter is an opportunistic punk, but unless you want to visit the sins of the son upon the father, it appears -- at least so far as we know today -- that Joe Biden did nothing untoward along the lines of "forcing a foreign government to do his bidding."
You must read a lot of Right Wing News.
Looks like it's crunch time––the wheel of "let's see how much I can get away with" has started to spin out of control. It appears that the Whistle Blower has credibility just like Daniel Ellsberg, a former marine with a Ph.D. in economics, had held positions of considerable influence unlike Snowden who was, to put it kindly, a disturbed human being ( Since 1978, whistle-blowing that risks national security has been been a contradiction in terms. If you steal classified documents, you can't be be a whistle-blower).
Having watched the hearings yesterday I couldn't help thinking that Mr. Maguire was a tad anal retentive–-military training will do that to you–-or so I've heard. The usual display by Republicans was expected but as Marie pointed out none stood by their man but slammed the process instead.
So the fun begins and we best do it well and carefully. Fatty rants about rats–-what he seems not to get is that rats go where the food is and this administration has had a belly full.
This morning's blissful vision:
I'm thinking of the Pretender as a trap for the seamy, for those naturally attracted to the foetid odors he emanates. They rush to him, hover happily around his awfulness and gorge (Barr comes to mind here) on the offal he discards.
It's not a pretty picture--unless you think there's a possibility that there's a strong arm of righteousness waiting in the wings that, seeing all those nasties conveniently located in one place, buzzing around the Pretender and his disgusting works, will swoop in and eliminate them all with one might blow.
This morning I'm going with that possibility.
Which is not the darker vision I shared with Krugman last night.
When Krugman suggested impeachment wouldn't have much effect on the economy, that in fact might help it, because the distraction of impeachment might keep it from doing more stupid things (my summary), I countered:
"Get your point, Mr. Krugman, and it's a good one, but thinking about this same issue it occurred to me that impeachment might have the opposite effect: hide even more ongoing degradation and dismantlement of good governance behind the noisy distraction of impeachment proceedings.
Up to now Trump's own noise* has been sufficient to take most of the public's attention away from the truly horrible things his hired hacks has done--to America's workers (see today's Scalia confirmation as Labor Secretary), to the environment, to our teetering healthhcare system, to LGBT and women's rights, to our courts, to Middle East peace, not to mention our relations with most other countries that don't happen to have a dictator at their head.
And, as the saying goes, so much more.
Add impeachment furor to all this and the distraction will be even greater, the noise harder to penetrate, and I fear it might act to provide even more cover for the termites and rats Trump has installed to gnaw away the underpinnings and even the visible structure of good government--all those things any civil society depends on-- which are exactly those things Trump and his band of raiders like to call the Deep State.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/26/opinion/trump-economy.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage
*almost wrote "flatulence" here but resisted.
Guess my crystal ball is still a bit cloudy. But I see (PD) there's a lot of agreement on rats.
@P.D. Pepe: Yeah, there are several reasons I think impeachment just might take this time and even have a very long-shot of leading to Trump's removal. One of them is this: Trump's whole Ukraine misadventure was an attempt to diss & dismiss Congress, the very group of judges who will decide to impeach or not to impeach.
Congress had voted appropriations for Ukraine and Trump held them up. He wouldn't even tell members of Congress -- including Mitch McConnell -- why he had put a hold on the releasing the funds, even though Mitch & others had repeatedly inquired. He only released the funds when news of the whistleblower complaint first broke. (Tho the first reports didn't indicate he was at the center of the complaint, he knew because the CIA had already told him.) So here he was defying the will of the Congress & he wouldn't explain why.
Then he and his Roy Cohn buried the whistleblower complaint. They didn't even tell Congress about its existence, much less deliver it to Congress as required by the law Congress passed. The whole purpose of the whistleblower laws is to give Congress opportunities to fulfill one of their principal duties of providing a check on executive waste, fraud & abuse. Had Atkinson not alerted Congressional leaders to the existence of this "urgent" whistleblower complaint, no one outside Trump's mob & and few discreet functionaries would have known about it. So while the main aim of Trump's Murder Inc. was to cover up Trump's wrongdoing, the effect was to subvert Congress.
Mitch & the Gang don't care if Trump colludes with a foreign government to subvert a U.S. election -- as long as it's a win for them (see reaction to Mueller report) -- but they do care about his undermining them; thus, the unanimous vote in the Senate & near-unanimous vote in the House to force Trump to release the whistleblower complaint.
If the House passes Articles of Impeachment, their trial lawyers would do well to appeal to the vanity of Senate Republicans by repeatedly reminding them that they were the victims of Trump & Rudy's foreign adventures.
PD -- "... -military training will do that to you– "
I was thinking just the same thing yesterday while watching Maguire. He's clearly a person who is trying to do the right thing but is conflicted by the idea of "going by the book", the code of chain of command, and the philosophy of staying in one's lane. That generally works well as a strategy for a senior military officer to cope with the civilian political bureaucracy -- but is doesn't work for an agency head or anyone who reports directly to a cabinet secretary. In Maguire's case, he could not seem to recognize that he has a prior duty to the word "shall" in the applicable law, and his obligations to consult with DOJ/OLC is a subordinate practice (not even a regulation).
Fortunately, the IC/IG seen his duty and he done it.
A few weeks ago I commented here that the DOD, IC, State and others were going to start blowing up DiJiT's world, on the Popeye point -- They's had all they can stands and can't stands no more. I hope we can expect more of these eruptions.
DiJiT probably already believed he can't trust anyone in the USG. He probably still doesn't realize that most of ther NSC staff are on loan from the national security agencies. Now his immediate myrmidons and satraps must also feel the same, that they are being watched. They will start to eat each other.
The little king lurches into full authoritarianism as he begins to see that this new gig is not exactly like his old one (which he still has) in which he can lie, cheat, steal, threaten, and bully to his withered little heart’s content. But upon the realization that he can’t get away with everything, he’s going full dictator. Those who don’t adore him should be denied the ability to write about him. Those who rat him out for his crimes should be executed. Those who tell the truth about him are obviously lying.
And about those R’s at the hearing yesterday, there was one (at least one, I couldn’t listen to most of their blather) who stepped up to defend Der Führer, and it was simpering ratboy, Devin Nunes who whined that Democrats were trying, unfairly, to tarnish the dear leader’s greatness, he who had done nothing wrong (my favorite “proof” of Fatty’s innocence is that Zelensky said he wasn’t pressured. Of COURSE he’s not going to say he was pressured. Are you daft?). We still haven’t heard from his cow yet, however. There might be more cud to chew.
In the meantime, R’s are working hard at this strategy of complaining that it’s all second-hand information. If this was Obama on trial, they wouldn’t care if they got their information in a fortune cookie from a Chinese takeout on Dupont Circle.
My hope is that at least one or more of those in the whistleblower’s circle will step up and provide first hand corroboration of Fatty’s treason.
Bea,
Agree there's some institutional pride in and protection of its privileges going on in the Senate but also think the Pretender' latest stumble (pratfall?) has given Moscow Mitch a perfect opportunity to pretend that he does care about the country he took an oath to serve and protect and to distance himself not just from the Pretender but from that "Moscow" label that is hurting him back there in his sweet ole' Kentucky home.
As for this phone call being a “nothingburger” (thank you, Lindsey Graham, for repeated and stunningly vivid examples of your complete insignificance), and the complaint about second hand information, there’s nothing second hand about how the Trump loyalists buried this information at the bottom of an unmarked dry well accessible only to Fatty lovers.
If there was nothing there, why the special lock box? It reminds me of that line from “A Few Good Men”: “Why the two orders, Colonel?” And don’t hand me any crap about how none of that matters now because Trump at long last released the “transcript”. Does it make it okay after burying a body in your cellar if, under duress, you finally lead detectives to the burial site? Do they then say, “We’ll forget all about you illegally burying this corpse since you let us see it after we threatened to arrest you and put you on trial for about 75 charges”?
If it was just a nice, happy little chit-chat, why all the soiled undies and the race to the deep-six hole?
And what happened to the rest of that conversation? (Per analysis by Burns Detective Agency)
Pretty amazing spectacle we've got building here. Stock up on popcorn folks. @Marie is going to be really busy trying to cover all the extraordinary muckracking going on these days, a big bravo again (from us all) for your summarizing services.
Did anyone else expect to have the smoking gun, irrefutable evidence not only in hand on Day 1, but even publicly available for us all to see and digest? Whoa. I still can't figure out how both the phone call "memo" and nearly the entire "classified" whistleblower complaint just got uploaded to the internets basically simultaneously, especially in this administration of StoneWalls-R-Us.
I too found it revealing that not even the GOP mouthbreathers like Nunes defended their Dear Leader. Where was Gym "sexual assault-is-cool-with-me" Jordan with his bug-eyed conspiracy theories? And what about Doug Collins, the most shameless of lap dogs? Nothing.
Another reason the whole GOP is hiding in their offices right now?
Mount Vesuvius.
He can't help himself. It's day one and he's already threatening the whistleblower with treason. Remember his wacko "electric chair" comment a few days ago? Seems like he's been stewing in capital punishment for a while now. That doesn't bode well for anyone caught in this web, and even less for Individual-I. Everyone with political capital tied to this crackpot is worried not if, but how much they're going to get burned by the poisonous ash and magma raining down from the White House.
I'm feeling a bit of that bliss evoked by @Ken today. The Senate won't convict, but he's already skewered in the House and the investigation is just getting started.
And all the dirt that gets exposed will add to the mountain of evidence for 2020: No way this helps him politically, except for the diehard Republicans who have already organized their carpools for election day.
My only worry with Ukrainegate being so open and shut is that the Dems will move too fast and not take advantage of the official "impeachment" powers to go after all the other strains of corruption being held up in the courts, notably securing his taxes and exposing all the ways he's funneling taxdollars into his greasy palms.
Looks like the Pretender is all on his own again, getting no help from anyone with his tweets. Clearly, this stable genius is doing them all by himself:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-mocks-cnn-typo-in-tweet-strewn-with-mistakes
Maybe no one wants to get that close to his toxicity. I'm picturing a lot of standoffishness in the White House.
Speaking of the toxic, I do hope that self-righteous prig Pence is ensnared in the net, too, along with Barr of course, as signs of his innocence are awkwardly absent. He's been in the Pretender's orbit too long to be untainted, beginning early on, since he was used (I believe) as a prop to oust Flynn.
Lied to the Veep? I never believed it. Pence was lying, too.
@Patrick: "myrmidon"! What a great word, and one that has perfect applications today. Never heard it, possibly because I haven't read "The Iliad" (too gory for a girl).
Regarding pence, I think this is a case where we can take trump at his word, that Democrats should "...look into Mike Pence's phone calls." Seems to me that trump is saying pence has at least as much dirt stuck to him, and is hoping that impeaching pence will take the heat off of himself. Such a very little brain.
More trembling, this time in the Kremlin, from the whistleblower fallout, and extending even to the headline which reads like a Pretender tweet.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2019/09/27/impeachment-russia-hopes-us-doesnt-release-trump-putin/3784764002/
I have not seen anyone pointing out how STUPID Trump's bribe was. He was telling the Ukrainians to "investigate" two conspiracy theories. The evidence is crystal clear that Russia was behind the hack of the DNC. Robert Mueller even charged specific Russians for the hacking in his report. And the Biden "corruption" scandal has been thoroughly debunked. Hunter's company was no longer being investigated and most of the Western Hemisphere was calling for the ouster of the Ukrainian prosecutor. What an awful deal maker Trump is. If you have nearly 400 million dollars to work with you should be able to come up with something a little better than some tired easily debunked stories. And if you are going to abuse the office of the presidency you might as well make it worth your while.
I've seen a lot of Republicans saying "I wouldn't have said that." Their usual half step away from Trump. Duh, of course they wouldn't. First, they know that it is wrong and illegal. Second, if they were to do something so brazen they would want to actually get something out of it. And third, they wouldn't do so obviously illegal and impeachable actions in front of so many people.
I’m still a tad in the dark about one thing (okay, well, many things cloud the synapses, but this one is particularly troublesome).
Ukraine. Why Ukraine? I get “why Ukraine?” for Manafort and Giuliani types, grifters and cheesy chiselers. EZ money from crooks and creeps. But when and why did Ukraine become such a major player? I’m guessing a lot of it has to do with Russia, specifically, Fatty’s handler, Putin.
Maybe it’s just the latest Wild West outpost for crooks and criminals (and Joe Biden’s knucklehead kid).
But the idea that the so called most powerful man in the world might be brought down by a conversation with a comedian in charge of a country that’s been passed around between various empires for a thousand years is more than a bit of a head scratcher.
I’m not complaining, mind you, it’s just...weird.
"Maybe it’s just the latest Wild West outpost for crooks and criminals"
Yes, that's the reason. But not "the latest", they've been in business for a long time. For the past twenty years or so Ukraine has been home to major international criminals, and especially cyber-criminals. All types - organized crime, free lance hackers and money launderers, cyber-terrorists, arms merchants. The corruption of the state has allowed illegal activities to thrive, and Uks have been in the smuggling and black market business for centuries. Just next door in the Caucuses a major activity since before Jesus has been extortion, kidnapping, highway robbery, piracy -- you name it. Your various types of cossacks didn't get their reputation for nothing. And, because Russia has dominated the region for centuries, all those bad elements in Russia could use Ukraine (which literally means "borderland") as their equivalent of the wild west -- lots of scope for illegal activity from Russia and the Black Sea littoral countries.
DiJiT and Rudy would know these people from therir New York days. In the '80s lots of Russians/Uks expanded their mob activities into NY and NJ. So it would be pretty easy for them to develop contacts with people who will do anything for a buck, birds of a feather.
In the early 90s I had a guy working for me who was 3rd gen Uk, and when Kyiv opened up he was all excited about going to work there, back to the old sod and all. He was back here in 6 months, thoroughly disillusioned, saying it was impossible to work there without getting mixed up in bribery, graft, false documentation, fraud, etc. The whole place ran that way.
You hate to be categorical, but I've never heard anybody say that "Uks are great folks to work with."
Like everybody else, I can see that Fatty is caught, fucked, dead. But he's still a dead man walking. When, not if, he gets impeached, he has no other option: he's going to go psychotic - think screaming, yelling, running naked in the streets. It doesn't matter that the Senate will not convict him: he will be faced with irrefutable evidence that not everyone adores him. This will be the end for him.
Good.
Victoria,
"Running naked in the streets..." oh god, I hope not. Think of all those poor people who will never be able to see again.
The rest of it I'm fine with.
Oh, unless the psychotic part prompts an interest in nuking someone.
@Patrick writes, "I've never heard anybody say that 'Uks are great folks to work with.'" Maybe not. But you may have read recently that a certain president* of the U.S. said on July 25, "I have many Ukrainian friends. They're incredible people."
BTW, I've read or heard in the past several days that the procedure for writing telcoms of a POTUS's phone calls with other world leaders is a collaborative process which may begin with a voice-recognition production, but also involves more than one transcriber and at least a few NSC officials. In the case of the particular telcom at issue, it is a revision of an earlier-produced & approved version. So quite a few pairs of eyes have read and re-read it.
So here's my burning question: Why does it read, "I have many Ukrainian friends. Their incredible people"? Can everyone involved -- except the voice-recognition machine -- please be impeached, too? Arrrgh!
Marie,
It’s very possible, under the influence of Trumpism, that some other transcriber jotted down “...there incredible people.”
A kinda counter point:
In my work I employed a number of recently immigated Ukrainians, some of whom were working as janitors tho' they had been trained and worked as higher level professionals in their homeland. They were all great people, some of them understandably disappointed that their social position had sunk to a lower level than they had known back home, but nonetheless hard-working, responsible and as far as I could tell, honest.
Of course, they had chosen to emigrate, which implies a form of self-selection I cannot speak to because this homebody has no personal experience with anything like it.
@ Bea, I noticed the same thing when I read the telcom memo.
Thanks, too, for the diacritic lesson yesterday (and Ak). I don't think I'll be using the diaeresis any time soon. But, I will stick with my Swedish umlauts å, ä, and ö because of they're importance for proper spelling and pronunciation.
Here's something good to know, a professional "how to write" teacher gives the whistleblower an "A"
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/27/opinion/whistleblower-complaint.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage
Ken, I'm with you, the several Americans of Ukrainian heritage I've known and worked with have been great people. So I'm guessing the geography has a lot to do with character. And as many ex-concentration camp inmates have said, when their actions were judged by people who have never been in danger, "if you weren't there you have no idea." It's tough to survive in a corrupt society, much less thrive.
Patrick wrote: "...'if you weren't there you have no idea.' It's tough to survive in a corrupt society, much less thrive."
Excellent point. And this observation could be transferred to any number of population groups the Orange Menace and his Party of Traitors routinely excoriate and spit upon: Central and South American migrants, inner city minority communities, women, members of LGBTQ communities, environmentalists (look at how Greta Thunberg has been deemed mentally retarded and a murderer by hateful Fox windbags), members and supporters of Black Lives Matter. And for anyone who takes issue with the term "corrupt society" being applied to America, I give you the fact of Donald Trump, I give you Fox, I give you Wall Street, I give you Moscow Mitch, I give you Bill Barr.
When these people criticize distressed human beings whose lives are brutally impacted by a panoply of hazards, recriminations, discriminations, hatreds, and moral assaults with not an iota of what it means to be in their shoes, there's no way you can describe that phenomenon without employing words like "corrupt" or "racist" or "ignorant" or "despicable".
And the situation becomes even more frustrating when you see people in this country, say, in deep red states, whose lives are also impacted in the most deleterious ways by Trumpist and confederate policies, but who back them up no matter what.
But a little girl who wants the planet to be livable is mentally ill? And those who want the United States to remain a decent and law-abiding nation are traitors?
@unwashed: Ha ha. "because of they're importance for proper spelling and pronunciation."